After 21 years, the Northwest Flower and Garden Show is up for sale until March as show creator Duane Kelly, chairman of Salmon Bay Events, is stepping down to move on to other interests and endeavors.

Kelly hopes to find a buyer for the show to continue the rite of spring tradition in the Pacific Northwest. If not, this will be the show's last blooming.

The possible final Northwest Flower and Garden Show will be held this Feb. 18 to 22 at the Washington Convention Center. It was the first major event ever produced at the convention center.

Salmon Bay Events owns and produces both the Northwest and San Francisco Flower and Garden Shows. They are the second and third largest flower shows in the country after Philadelphia. More than 1.5 million have attended the show since its inception, and annual attendance ranges between 60,000 and 80,000 people.

"The business started right here in Ballard," Kelly said. "I started my first company in Ballard in 1979, a commercial fishing magazine called Pacific Fishing and nine years after I started the flower show."

Kelly's headquarters is located on 15th Avenue Northwest, across from Louie's Chinese Restaurant, and finds the root of his business in Ballard.

"We've always been in Ballard so it's a family owned business," Kelly said. "We're very proud to be based here in Ballard because there are lots of interesting gardens in Ballard so a lot of people from Ballard come to the garden show."

Kelly said he hopes to sell the shows to buyers that are committed to maintaining their level of quality.

Janine Anderson of Anderson-Lelievre Landscape Design has attended the show almost every year since the beginning. She has volunteered at the show for more than a decade and designed her first display garden in 2008. She said she has mixed feelings about the possibility of the show ending.

"I'm grateful to Duane Kelly and the staff at the Salmon Bay Events for offering Northwesterners a respite from winter doldrums for almost two decades and am sympathetic to Kelly in his desire to pursue other interests," Anderson said. "It's unfortunate that no buyer has emerged who would maintain the standards of the current show, and I'm worried about the effect of the show's closing on staff and temporary personnel."

Even though the show is about gardening and the beauty of gardens, Kelly compares it to being in show business.

"With all the intensity and risk associated with show business it's very intensive," Kelly said. "I've been doing it for 22 years and I'm tired and worn out so it's time for me to turn the chapter and go on to something else."

Kelly said he hopes to spend more time exploring humanitarian work internationally and is working on his fourth play.

"We're proud of what we've created with these shows, but it's time for me to move on," Kelly said.

Gery Rudolph, owner of Small Worlds Within Reach, a business of tray gardens that fit on top of table or benches, has attended the show for the past 20 years and said she sees the possible closure equivalent to the Mariner's leaving town.

"This is the stuff that must not happen," Rudolph said. "It's another one of those things that not all cities have-a big flower and garden show-and Seattle is one of the best places to grow plants. So to not have a flower and garden show here seems insane."
Kelly said he wants the possible final show to be more of a celebration than a funeral.

"There's so many gardeners in the Pacific Northwest, ranging from British Columbia to Oregon and Idaho, that I know a lot of them will come this year to enjoy it one last time," Kelly said.

For more information on the show or tickets visit www.gardenshow.com.